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DELTA Module Two study materials
DELTA Module Two study resources

DELTA Module Two: Module Three: Extending Practice and ELT Specialism

DELTA Module Two · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.

All guide sections

Module Three: Extending Practice and ELT Specialism

Module Three is the extended assignment (4,000–5,000 words) in which you choose an ELT specialism, investigate it, carry out a needs analysis, design a course or programme, and evaluate it. It tests your ability to connect theory, context and design coherently, rather than to describe a favourite teaching idea.

The assignment logic

  • Specialism: narrow it until it is researchable and teachable. “EAP writing for first-year postgraduate engineers” is a specialism; “EAP” or “young learners” is a field.
  • Needs analysis: use more than one source - questionnaire, interview, diagnostic task, institutional requirements - and discuss the limitations of each.
  • Course design: align aims, syllabus, tasks, materials and assessment. Justify each decision with both the needs analysis and the literature.
  • Evaluation: explain how the course would be monitored and adapted, and address ethics such as consent and anonymity.

Worked example

Specialism: academic writing for MA TESOL students. A needs analysis shows difficulty with citation and cohesion. The design is a genre-based course using move analysis, model texts, joint construction, drafting and peer review. Assessment includes a source-integration criterion. The reasoning: the needs point to citation and cohesion; genre pedagogy provides tasks that make those features visible; the assessment criterion checks the same features, so needs, tasks and evaluation align.

Core rules

  • Keep a clear thread: needs → aims → syllabus → tasks → assessment → evaluation.
  • Use literature critically: compare positions and apply them to your context.
  • Describe the learners and setting precisely; avoid a generic “students”.
  • Show awareness of constraints: time, class size, institutional syllabus, resources.

Traps

A specialism so broad it cannot be covered; a single-questionnaire needs analysis; a course design that ignores the stated needs; a literature review that only summarises; assessment added as an afterthought; exceeding the word limit; ignoring ethical safeguards.